“Fine,” he said, grabbing my hand to keep me from taking a layer off my skin. “But I'm coming with you.”
“I don't know—”
“It wasn't a request,” he said, flashing dangerous eyes. “He's probably still sleeping, but I'm not taking any chances.”
“Still sleeping?”
“Yes,” he said, walking to his room. “It takes a lot out of you to Change for the first time, as you saw. You have to heal for a while afterward.”
“Huh...,” I said, ruminating over his words.
“What?” he asked, wheeling around to look at me. “Huh, what?”
“Well, I was just wondering earlier why Scarlet seemed to be AWOL. But she wouldn't be in a healing coma.”
“Wait a minute,” he said, his expression very serious. “What exactly happened last night?”
“I...um,” I stammered, trying to think of what to say. “See that's the weird thing about all of this. I don't really know what happened.”
“Where did you stay last night?”
“Ronnie's.”
“And when did you go there?”
“After I left Matty's.”
“And when was that?”
“Umm...after he Changed?” I said, more a question than an answer.
“Right after?” he asked, his eyes probing.
“Well, that's when it gets a bit fuzzy, you see.... I think there's a bit of time missing in that scenario.”
“Missing how?”
“Like I don't remember anything from when Matty turned around with his wolf eyes on me to me waking up pretty much naked draped across his body,” I said, wincing away from him as if thwarting off a blow.
“Fuck...me...running...,” he said, blood withdrawing from his face. “Not good, Ruby. So not good.”
“What's wrong?” I asked in a panic. “What's not good that I don’t already know?”
“There are only two reasons that I can think of as to why he wouldn't have killed you. One is that Scarlet is a bad ass motherfucker and she stomped his ass, which clearly didn't happen if he's still breathing.”
“And two?” I asked nervously, feeling the sweat start to bead on the back of my neck. The look on his face was not promising.
“You're mated,” he said with a sigh.
“I'm WHAT?” I yelled.
“You're mated,” he said, repeating himself needlessly.
I'd heard him loud and clear.
“Yeah, I got what you said, but I'm not getting what you're saying. I'm mated? But I wasn't even there, technically, how could I be—oooooh,” I said with the wide-eyed, stunned expression people wear when the mental light bulb finally flicks on, but what it illuminates is not what they'd hoped to see. “So Scarlet. She...she—”
“Chose Matty,” Cooper said with a slight hint of distaste. “Didn't take her for the Boy Scout type.”
“Most Boy Scouts haven't been to juvie, Cooper. He's probably the exact type for her, and, well, apparently is since she picked him. Holy shit!”
“We need to get down there now,” he said, pushing me towards the door.
“Wait!” I yelled, digging in my heels. “That's a bad idea. Won't he flip out if you're with me? If I'm his woman or whatever?” He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment as if that was the first time I'd said something potentially insightful. “Think about it. He's not going to hurt me; he'll want to protect me...from you!”
“You may be right,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don't want to have to kill him.”
The growl rumbled out of my throat with a threat level of ten.
“Ruby,” Cooper said, his voice overly calm. “Nobody is going to harm Matty. Ever. Okay?”
Silence.
“Did I do that?” I asked, panic in my voice.
“Yes. Your eyes went that weird purple color they turn when Scarlet bleeds into you, but doesn't fully take over. It seems to happen when you're in agreement about what you want.”
“Oh shit...”
“Oh shit, indeed.”
“Alright, then it's clearly a bad idea for you to come with me.”
“Looks that way.”
“I'm going to go then. I'll call you once I retrieve my phone.”
“Take my cell,” he ordered, fishing it out of his back pocket. “I have the landline programmed into it. God knows you have no clue what your own phone number is. Call me when you get there.”
I gave him a little hug before heading for the front door.
“Be careful, Rubes. This shit is bad. Really bad,” he said. “If Sean finds—”
“Sean isn't going to find out,” I shouted, pointing my finger at him, “because you're not going to tell him and neither am I. I'll figure something out. I always do.”
I slammed the door behind me and paused before going down the stairs. Sean was out of town, which made my life exponentially easier in the short term, but the long term looked bleak. Very, very bleak. I knew then that Scarlet not only wouldn't kill Matty, but she would take out anyone else who tried. The implications were staggering.
22
I called Cooper as soon as I pulled up outside the house, as per his mandate. His concern was palpable when I left, but, even taking that into consideration, he was turning into quite the little dictator. Sean would have been proud.
The house was silent, and I made my way in through the back, the same as I had the previous night. Cooper had told me that as long as I didn't sneak up on Matty everything would be fine. If he was still asleep, I was to find my phone and get out as quietly as possible. He actually rolled his eyes when he said it. His pet nickname for me had become “the elephant,” or “petit elephant” when he was feeling especially cultured, due to my heavy footedness when I walked. With that in mind, I tiptoed through the house looking for any sign of Matty on the first floor. Everything appeared as it had when I left.
Softly calling his name, I received no response. I crept up the stairs trying to make as little noise as possible, but in a century-old home, it was virtually impossible. Creeks and groans escaped from every tread. When I heard the squeaking of a mattress upstairs, I froze.
“Matty,” I whispered as loudly as I dared.
He made a guttural sound of protestation, like I was his mother calling him to get ready for school.
I proceeded with a little less caution until I was in the upstairs hall.
“Matty,” I called out again.
“Ughhhh.”
“Matty, it's me, Ruby,” I said, moving closer to his room. “I just need to get my phone.
“Food?” he grumbled, barely intelligible.
“Uh, sure...sure, I can go get you something,” I said, backtracking to the first floor kitchen. I slapped together the most ridiculous combination of foods I could find along with a gallon jug of orange juice before returning upstairs. It might not have been the best idea, given that he was going to be less problematic when starving and weak, but the images of him wasting away plagued my mind, even though he had recovered from that. Some things couldn't be unseen.
Hovering just outside his room, I wasn’t sure that I was ready to see the state he was in. I wasn't excited about seeing what state he would put me in either. Getting shoved aside by Scarlet was a frightening and helpless experience the first time around, and I wasn't looking forward to the possibility of it happening again.
Planning for that very event, I had my ring placed snugly on my hand before even leaving my apartment. Neither Cooper nor I was sure it would work, but I thought it certainly couldn't hurt my chances. Scarlet and I had functioned in a more integrated way after our healing incident with Sophie, but, after what occurred as a result of Matty's Change, it appeared that we were further apart than ever. If my blackouts were going to return, I had to prepare. I felt like my life was coming around full circle. And that was so not an improvement.
“I've got food,” I said as I stuck my head in around the door. “Are you decent—”
No. No, he
wasn't.
He stood beside the bed as naked as the day he was born, staring at me with tired but hungry eyes. He definitely wasn't interested in the food I was precariously carrying either. His hunger ran far deeper than that.
“So, my phone? Any ideas where that might be?” I asked, scanning the ransacked room. It literally looked like a category three hurricane had hit it, and all I could think was how glad I was that I didn't remember what had been done to cause that level of destruction. Suddenly, I had the strangest urge to clean it before his parents got home.
“No,” he said, facing me square on.
“Okay,” I said, squirming under his stare. “Well, I’ll just put this on the bed and go look for it then,” I said, moving to the far side of the offset mattress to put the armload of food down. He intercepted me on the way.
“I'm not hungry anymore,” he said, pulling me close to him. I felt Scarlet bouncing off the walls of my skull like a caged animal desperate to escape. Her reaction settled it. Matty and she were mated for sure. The downside was that he didn't seem to realize that bond didn't apply to me as well.
“Weird,” I said, ducking away from him gracefully. “Cooper said you'd need to eat soon, so—”
“Cooper,” he growled, low and threatening.
“He's just trying to help,” I explained, hoping to defuse the situation.
“He wants you for himself,” he said, knocking me to the bed, positioning himself above me. Food scattered throughout the room, amplifying its post-storm appearance.
“No. He doesn't,” I said, trying to push him off of me. I might as well have been trying to push my car.
“He thinks he owns you.”
“Nobody owns me.”
“He's wrong.”
“You're wrong.”
“I think your girl, Scarlet, would disagree,” he said with a wicked grin. “She seemed to think I owned her pretty good last night.”
I cringed at the thought of what those two had done and was once again grateful for complete lack of knowledge regarding their bedroom shenanigans.
“She doesn't speak for me.”
“She seems to think she does.”
“She thinks a lot of things that are delusional.”
He eyed me tightly, cocking his head to the right.
“Where is she now?”
“Sleeping.”
“Liar.”
“Prove it.”
“I want to see her.”
“You want to fuck her,” I said, feeling the lust roll off of him in waves. “You want to fuck me too.”
“True. But I've wanted that for a long time now. The thing with Scarlet is a freaky little bonus.”
“Look, this has been fun and all, Matty, but I need to get my phone and get out of here before you and I both find ourselves in a world of hurt with Sean. Trust me, he's not to be fucked with—ever. And if anyone has a claim to me, it's him,” I said, rolling out from under him. “Your Changing,” I said, walking to the far side of the room. “It could cause some problems. For both of us. I need you to lay low—behave. And trust me when I tell you something. Our asses are both hanging out in the breeze here right now.”
“I'd prefer your ass be hanging out here,” he said, pointing to his rather perky nether regions.
I ignored his comment, tossing things around the room in search of the one little thing that could cause me a world of drama, or at least more than I already had. When I flipped the mattress up and across the room, I screeched at the sight of the tiny silver device. I grabbed it, unhooked the battery, and pulled out the SIM card. The GPS function would be disabled, and I hoped it wasn't too late. Sean may have been out of town, but the boys were always available to his every command.
“Awesome,” I said, heading out the door, “I need to go make a call...far away from here.”
“Not so fast,” he said, grabbing me around my waist, pushing his body against my back. “I want to see her. Now.”
“Not going to happen, Matty. You need to let me go.”
“You need to let me see her,” he said, applying an uncomfortable amount of force to my stomach. “She wants to see me. I can feel her.”
He wasn't bluffing. The headache I was amassing from the screaming and pounding she was doing inside my mind was proof of his point. Still, it wasn't an option I was willing to concede.
“If I don't make this call, we're both dead,” I said, working hard to breathe. “If Sean finds out that I infected you, he'll have to kill us both.”
“Interesting,” he said, scratching his face.
“What's interesting?” I asked.
“Nothing. So what is he, some sort of werewolf assassin?”
“That's precisely what he is, and, more specifically, he's the number one assassin for our particular breed of werewolf. He's been hunting us for centuries.”
“And yet he lets you live,” he said with a hint of mocking. “You must have made that very worth his while.”
“What can I say? He has a soft spot for me. Always has.”
“Maybe he'll have one for me too,” he scoffed.
“No, I'm pretty sure he'd kill you the second he laid eyes on you.”
“So what do you propose then?”
“I propose you let me call him and make nicey-nice over the phone so he thinks everything is fine,” I said, trying to wriggle free. “After that, I don't have a clue how to fix this, but I know one thing is for sure. If you bring any attention to yourself whatsoever, the jig is up. Sean and his brothers will hunt you down, and as soon as they see what you are, they'll be coming for me next.”
He released me and I staggered to the doorway, gasping for breath.
“So you want me to pretend that everything is business as usual?”
“Exactly. I'll see you at dance tomorrow night. Until then...eat something, fix up this shithole of a room, and try to keep your nose clean,” I said, walking away. “And under NO circumstances are you to Change, do you hear me?”
“You didn't seem to mind last night.”
“I wasn't there last night, and please keep those details to yourself. I don't need to know what you two furries were doing.”
“They call it doggy-style for a reason...”
“Oh my God, Matty!”
“That's what she said,” he laughed, throwing his head back in self-amusement.
“You know where to find me if you need anything not sexually related. I'll keep you posted about Sean.”
“My offer still stands about those two,” he said, suddenly becoming all business-like.
“You wouldn't stand a chance, Matty. Let me handle them.”
He growled in response, and I left before he had a chance to say anything else. The whole encounter had been far more anticlimactic than I feared it would be, and I knew for that yin I was in for a bitch of a yang. I tried to push the possibilities out of my mind as I got in the car and sped off for downtown. I had a call to make and it needed to count. If I fucked it up, it was as good as putting the revolver to my own head and pulling the trigger. Maybe that would have been the easiest way out.
I stopped at the gas station a few blocks from the studio and put my phone back together. I knew I had to call him, but I was unable to shake the sneaking suspicion that I was walking into a trap, like lying about where I'd been was a test Sean had manufactured, determined I would fail, but hoping I would pass. Regardless of my intuition, the outcome was the same—I had to place the call.
Twirling the phone round and round in my hand, I searched for the words to say to him. There was a feeling in my gut that gnawed away at me. He knew—he had to. I couldn't believe that he hadn't already found out where my phone was if it was so simple to find out in the first place. It would explain why he was so angry with me outside the cafe. He probably called to have it traced after being unable to find it at Ronnie's. Since I hadn't told him what had happened, he wanted to make sure it hadn't been something stupid. Instead of stumbling upon another of my r
idiculous blunders, he'd have found out that I was a cheating whore. Last night was the full moon. Don't think I'm going to forget that little detail. Sean never forgot anything. Ever.
With a lump in my stomach, I did the only thing I could. I put the phone back together and dialed him up, sweating profusely, even though the air-conditioning was on full, blasting me in the face. Ring after ring, I reminded myself of the plan.
“You're going to tell him the truth...you're going to tell him the truth...you're going to tell him the—”
Voicemail. He didn't even bother to answer.
“He's busy,” I told myself as I waited for beep. “Hey, it's me. I...I really need to talk to you. It's about last night. I still don't remember what happened, but there's something you should know. It's really important. Call me when you can,” I said, before hesitating. “I...I love you, Sean.”
I clicked the end button and ran my thumb over the screen several times before putting it away. As I fired the car up and sped off toward the interstate, I wiped the tears from my cheeks that I initially hadn't felt escape. A nap was in order when I got home. I needed to sleep away some of the drama from my life. It was wishful thinking though, knowing that Cooper would want a play-by-play of the whole thing down to the very last detail. Sleep wouldn't be allowed until he was satisfied.
As I drove, I wondered if maybe it wouldn't have been easier to just blurt out what I'd done in the message. Not having to hear the varied emotions in Sean’s voice would have been music to my ears. Instead, I had set myself up for a frenzied call that would only further agitate him with the news that I'd once again fucked something up royally. Maybe if I'd just told him what was wrong when he gave me my get-out-of-jail-free pass, he could have made it all go away. But I knew why I didn't. Making it all go away meant making Matty go away, and I still just wasn't able to saddle myself with that responsibility. Even if Sean had let me live, I wouldn't have wanted to.
I don't know what I hoped the outcome of my confession would be, but I was becoming readily convinced that it would be better than living a lie slathered with guilt. The upside was that he would at least know that I hadn't betrayed him, whoring myself out on the full moon. A tiny smile spread on my face at the thought. A fuck-up I may have been, but a slut without morals I was not.
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